Social Sharing

Newsletter: A closer look at the day's most notable stories

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are negotiating a potential face-to-face meeting. North and South Korean leaders plan to meet for peace talks on April 27. (Evan Vucci/Associated Press, Korean Central News Agency/Reuters)

Welcome to The National Today newsletter, which takes a closer look at what's happening around some of the day's most notable stories. Sign up here and it will be delivered directly to your inbox Monday to Friday.

TODAY:

North Korea is saying it would consider "complete denuclearization" in pursuit of a peace deal with the U.S., according to South Korean President Moon Jae-in

Prosecutors in Minnesota have determined that singer Prince died of an accidental fentanyl overdose, likely by ingesting a counterfeit pain pill

Ikea's new CEO says the company's future is in small stores, online shopping and home delivery

Peace with North Korea?

In advance of a possible face-to-face meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, the Hermit Kingdom suddenly seems willing to make a deal.

"North Korea is expressing a will for a complete denuclearization," South Korean President Moon Jae-in told reporters in Seoul today.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects a Hwasong-12 long-range strategic ballistic rocket in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency on May 15, 2017. (Korean Central News Agency via Reuters)"They have not attached any conditions that the U.S. cannot accept, such as the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea. All they are expressing is the end of hostile policies against North Korea, followed by a guarantee of security."

And speculation is running high that the two sides might soon sign a deal bringing an official end to the 1950-53 war, which concluded in a truce rather than a treaty.

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in says North Korea is 'expressing a will for a complete denuclearization.' (Kham/Pool/Reuters)The two sides have remained on a war footing for 68 years, with North Korea's one-million strong army staring down the South's 600,000 military personnel — backed up by 24,000 U.S. troops.

Even if peace does come to the Korean peninsula, it will be an awfully long time before the soldiers disappear.

South Korea is now the U.S. military's third-largest foreign deployment, behind Japan's 39,000 and the 35,000 in Germany. (Afghanistan now ranks fourth with 15,000 and Iraq's 5,500 is well down the list, behind Italy, the U.K. and Kuwait.)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, right, shakes hands with a member of the special delegation of South Korea's president on March 6, 2018. The two countries will hold a summit on April 27, inside the demilitarized zone that separates them. (KCNA/via Reuters)That doesn't mean the U.S. military footprint is getting smaller, however.

It will provide space for up to 42,000 military personnel and their families. Airstrips, pads for Apache attack helicopters, high-tech communications facilities and barracks have all been added — almost entirely paid for by the South Korean government.

A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber flies over Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. (Chung Sung-Jun/EPA)And few comforts have been spared. There are six schools on base, as well as several churches, a golf course, water park, vet clinic, football stadium and American fast-food outlets.

In addition, the U.S. Air Force operates two major air bases in South Korea — Osan with about 8,000 personnel, and Kunsan. And there's a Navy port in Chinhae.

The Osan U.S. Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, has about 8,000 personnel. It's one of the largest of the more than 100 U.S. bases in the country, with South Korea hosting a total of 24,000 U.S. troops. (Hong Gi-won/Associated Press)And then there's the odd fact that South Korea can't technically make peace with the North.

The Korean War was a United Nations "Police Action" and the armistice was between China, North Korea and the UN Command.

A new peace treaty will legally require all of those parties to sign off.

Purple pain

Prosecutors in Minnesota have determined that Prince died of an accidental fentanyl overdose, likely by ingesting a counterfeit pain pill.

No criminal charges will be filed in connection with the April 2016 death of the musician, Mark Metz, the Carver County Attorney, told a press conference this afternoon.

Authorities investigating the circumstances surrounding singer Prince's death on April 21, 2016, say he died of an accidental fentanyl overdose. (Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press)"The bottom line is that we do not have sufficient evidence to charge anyone with a crime related to Prince's death," he said. "There is no reliable evidence showing how Prince obtained the counterfeit Vicodin pill containing fentanyl."

Authorities have been investigating the circumstances surrounding the singer's death since he was found unconscious and unresponsive inside an elevator at his Paisley Park estate outside Minneapolis on April 21, 2016.

Prince performs at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., in 1985. A toxicology report performed as part of his autopsy flagged 'exceedingly high' concentrations of the drug fentanyl in his blood, liver and stomach. (Liu Heung Shing/Associated Press)Metz said that the 57-year-old had been experiencing severe pain and had sought a doctor's attention, receiving a prescription for oxycodone in the name of his bodyguard for "privacy reasons." But authorities are unclear as to how, or when, Prince turned to the fake Vicodin to deal with his symptoms. No fentanyl was ever prescribed.

The two-year investigation was a thorough one, with police obtaining search warrants for the reclusive star's home and email, and the cellphone records of his associates. (Prince didn't have his own phone.)

Prince was found unconscious and unresponsive inside an elevator at his Paisley Park estate outside Minneapolis. Now run by the same company that oversees Elvis's Graceland, the property opened for tours and special events six months after his death. (Jeff Baenen/Associated Press)Evidence showed that his friends and employees had become concerned that he might have developed a painkiller addiction and sought medical advice, going as far as to fly in an addiction specialist from California the night he died.

Six days earlier, Prince had passed out on his private plane while returning home from a concert, and had to be revived with two doses of Naloxone, following an emergency landing.

But he died without a will and his estate — estimated to be worth between $100 million and $300 million US —the subject of a legal tug-of-war, pitting his sister against five half-siblings. To date, no one but the lawyers has seen a penny of it.

Prince performs a concert in Antwerp Sportpaleis on November 8, 2010. He left behind a vault full of unreleased audio and video recordings, once telling a guitar magazine that he taped everything, including informal jam sessions. (Dirk Waem/AFP/Getty Images)Paisley Park, now run by the same company that oversees Elvis's Graceland, opened for tours and special events six months after his death, and now features a gift shop, party space and vegetarian restaurant. As well as Prince's earthly remains —placed inside a miniature model of the sprawling property.

Like this newsletter? Sign up and have it delivered by email.You may also like our early-morning newsletter, the Morning Brief — start the day with the news you need in one quick and concise read. Sign up here.

As such, the company plans to move away from its traditional store and catalogue approach and put more focus on improving its online shopping experience, including home delivery.

Ikea CEO Jesper Brodin at a pop-up kitchen showroom downtown Stockholm, Sweden. Broden says the retailer, known for its massive warehouse stores, is looking at expansion through smaller locations, online ordering and home delivery. (Anna Ringstrom/Reuters)The big box, suburban warehouse locations will remain, but new stores are more likely to be small and centrally located.

On Tuesday, Ikea announced that it will open a new, compact outlet in Paris' ritzy Madeleine neighbourhood in the summer of 2019, which will be about one-fifth the size of standard stores. It will stock some smaller items, but large furniture will be strictly order and delivery.

The company established its first downtown shop in Hamburg in 2014, followed by a bedroom showroom in Madrid, and now has plans for similar urban beachheads in London and Copenhagen.

Ikea says the big box, suburban warehouse locations will remain, but new stores are more likely to be small and centrally located in cities. (Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images)Ikea's business plans will also become slimmer, dropping to three years from five, with more short-term targets.

Brodin has been musing about leasing furniture, as well as selling it. Retail sales growth for the Ikea Group, which owns 362 stores worldwide, slowed to two per cent last year, down from a seven per cent average over the previous five years.

Ikea's CEO is musing about moving into the furniture-leasing business. (Carolyn Ray/CBC)TaskRabbit is an online marketplace where people can hire someone to do odd jobs, like assembling furniture. Ikea bought the San Francisco-based company last year for an undisclosed amount. The company is urging people to take precautions if their TaskRabbit password is the same one they use for other apps or sites.

Meanwhile, there a sign that such services will soon be outdated themselves.

Robots at Nanyang Technological University assemble an Ikea chair. (Nanyang Technological University/YouTube)It took the two robots 20 minutes and 19 seconds to build the chair frame, versus the 10 to 15 minutes that is said to be the assembly time for a "typical human."

Or an hour-and-a-half for everyone else.

Quote of the moment

"Hans Asperger, who for a long time was seen as only having made valuable contributions to the field of pediatrics and child psychiatry, was, as Herwig Czech's newly unearthed evidence shows, also guilty of actively assisting the Nazis in their abhorrent eugenics and euthanasia policies ... Asperger was not just doing his best to survive in intolerable conditions but was also complicit with his Nazi superiors in targeting society's most vulnerable people."

- An editorial, published today in the Journal of Molecular Autism alongside an article on the war-time activities of Austrian doctor Hans Asperger, a pioneering autism researcher whose name has been given to a form of the developmental disorder.

Hans Asperger, circa 1940. (Molecular Autism)

What The National is reading

Two-year-old found dead in Quebec City park, mother harms self in custody (CBC)

Facebook moves 1.5 billion users out of reach of European privacy law (Guardian)

Today in history

April 19, 1982: Woman busted for selling carpet by the yard

Calgary retailer Zoritza Kasparian became the test case for Canada's new Metric Commission when she persisted in advertising and selling carpets by the yard instead of by metre. Fears of "enforced metrification" might have been overblown, however. You can still purchase imperially measured rugs today.

A store owner in Calgary is charged for selling carpets by the yard. 1:40

Sign up here and have The National Today newsletter delivered directly to your inbox Monday to Friday.

About the Author

Jonathon Gatehouse

Jonathon Gatehouse

Has covered news and politics at home and abroad, reporting from dozens of countries. He has also written extensively about sports, including seven Olympic Games and a best-selling book on the business of pro-hockey.